Derby County

Monday, 30 September 2013

Nigel Clough went into Saturdays game with his former side Nottingham Forest as the fourth longest-serving manager in the game. By Saturday evening he had joined Paolo Di Canio on the managerial scrapheap.
Former Derby midfielder Robbie Savage has labelled the decision diabolical and others in the ...

Tuesday, 24 September 2013

Manchester United’s on-loan midfielder Jesse Lingard scored four times on an
extraordinary Birmingham City debut, helping his team to a 4-1 win over
hapless Sheffield Wednesday at the weekend.
However, he isnt the first, and he wont be the last, player to be so four-midable in front of goal...

Wednesday, 14 August 2013

The return of the most action-packed and exciting league in the world is only three days away, but what will the Premier League produce this season?
For a start there will be no Sir Alex Ferguson. The Manchester United boss has retired, leaving David Moyes to deal with the mess that is Wayne Ro...

Monday, 12 August 2013

Watfords Troy Deeney scored the Championships first hat-trick of the season in the Hornets 6-1 annihilation of Bouremouth at the weekend. His effortsin front of goal has taken his tally to four and currently tops the chart in the race to become the Championships top scorer. But will he end the seaso...

Sunday, 11 August 2013

The Premier League season is just days away and we at Squarefootball are getting ready by staring into our crystal balls and predicting our winners and losers for the season ahead.
Weve already had Mitch Waddon predict title glory for Manchester City while Jim Barry has plumped for Jose Mourinh...

Saturday, 10 August 2013

There are only days remaining until the most exciting league in the world kicks off for another action-packed season of goals, controversy and talking points.
The action is already under way in the Football League and Scotland, but who will be the biggest winners and losers during 2013/14 campaign?...

Sunday, 04 August 2013

Swansea City stunned everyone last season by clinching the League Cup in Michael Laudrups first season at the Liberty Stadium, earning the Swans a long-awaited return into Europe. But who will be victorious at Wembley this time?
The competition kicks off on Monday with Preston, who drew with Wolves...

Saturday, 03 August 2013

The 2013/2014 Championship season gets under way today with Queens Park Rangers being pushed as the favourites to make an
immediate return to the Premier League.
The Hoops, managed by wheeler-dealer and former England manager contender Harry Redknapp, will be hoping to utilise Tony Fernandes’s for...

Thursday, 30 May 2013

With Mark Hughes on the verge of becoming Stoke Citys next boss, Jose Mourinho set to return to Chelsea and Manchester City having agreed a verbal deal for Malagas Manuel Pellegrini, all three of them will be hoping for a long stay in English football.
However, Hughes has already had his first Hugh...

Tuesday, 07 May 2013

There are not many days in the course of the long football season that
the glitzy farce of the Premier League is shuffled into the background like an
ugly sister at a wedding. Usually, as the weekend rolls around every pundit,
fan and newscaster is eagerly sharing their thoughts on Van Persie...

Sunday, 05 May 2013

To call it high drama doesnt even do justice to the last day of the Championship. All three major issues - promotion, play-offs and relegation went to the last minute.
At the KC Stadium Hull City made sure they did it the hardest of hard ways before finding a way back to the Premier League. Going...

Wednesday, 27 March 2013

The Championship is arguably the toughest football league in the world. Anyone can beat anyone on their day and a couple of wins can take you from relegation fodder to play-off material. There are only eight more games of this madness left before the crazy world of the play-offs get under way, so le...

Sunday, 27 January 2013

Luton Town became the first non-league club in 24 years to beat a top flight side on Saturday as the Hatters beat Premier League Norwich City 1-0 at Carrow Road.
Paul Buckles men rode their luck against the Canaries, but super sub Scott Rendell wrote his name in FA Cup folklore with a winner 10 mi...

Saturday, 05 January 2013

The FA Cup Third Round gets under way this weekend and everyone is dreaming of Wembley. Even the big boys, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City, Man United and Spurs will all be looking forward to a sunny day under the arch in May.
But who will win the FA Cup this season?
Chelsea are the current ...

Monday, 10 December 2012

Leeds United have been on a roll in the past couple of weeks but that came to an end in the early kick-off on Saturday at Pride Park. Nigel Cloughs Derby County beat the team that his father managedfor an uncomfortable 44 days and the star role came from a product of the County youth system.
Will...

Wednesday, 07 November 2012

Its a truism of football that managers usually take over teams when they are in trouble and the last incumbent has resigned or been sacked. Thats certainly not the case at Crystal Palace though, where Ian Holloway has inherited a bunch of players full of confidence and fairly fizzing on the park...

Monday, 01 October 2012

And so it finally happened. Blackburn Rovers went into Saturdays encounter with Charlton without Steve Kean at the helm. The Scot resigned this week - was it before he was pushed? - much to the relief of Ewood Park fans.
Unfortunately for the supporters Venkys didnt go with him but you cant hav...

Thursday, 13 September 2012

Over the past five days we have taken a look at Premier League managers who were in the right place at the wrong time, but today we look at the big one . . . Old big ed Brian Clough at Leeds United.
Clough was never a big fan of Don Revies Leeds side so it was a huge shock when he replaced Revie at...

Tuesday, 11 September 2012

Any long time readers
of this column will be acutely aware of my ill feelings towards the current
football malaise we reside in: the international break. A fortnight long forced
abstinence of domestic football with only a scattered group of international
fixtures to keep us going. Mercifully...

Tuesday, 04 September 2012

All in all, it’s fair
to say that the summer of 2012 will be looked back on with a great deal of
fondness by the vast majority. Sure the weather failed to resemble anything
remotely “summery”, and we may of had to put up with the usual bunch of
sycophantic ne’er-do-wells in the Big Brother h...

Monday, 03 September 2012

Craig Mackail-Smith is an unusual name for a Scotland striker but the Brighton player showed his international pedigree at Turf Moor on Saturday with two quality strikes, one of which would grace a goal of the season compilation.
The striker made the difference in a 3-1 win which didnt flatter th...

Tuesday, 28 August 2012

It already feels like
the 2012-13 season has been going for months. Arsenal and Tottenham have had
about three different periods of crisis already; Sir Alex claims Wayne Rooney
isn’t pulling his weight, despite only having played one and half games; and
Aston Villa manager Paul Lambert is al...

Monday, 27 August 2012

Liverpool are the
most successful club in League Cup history. They won the competition for the
eighth time last season as Kenny Dalglish’s men beat Cardiff City in an epic game
that had to be settled on penalties. The competition enters its second round this
week and, although some teams may dec...

Saturdays games saw the rare occurrence of amatch being abandoned due to health and safety reasons. With thunderous clouds overhead and lightning flashing, Wycombe Wanderers and Bristol Rovers were called off well into the second half of their League Two contest.
Rovers were the most aggrieved by...

Sunday, 26 August 2012

Ian
Holloway’s Blackpool have made an unbeaten start to the new campaign. The
Tangerines have scored 10 goals in three games against Millwall, Leeds and
Ipswich Town, conceding just one in the process, and are looking good for a
promotion place.
However,
trying to predict the Championship i...

Tuesday, 21 August 2012

The beginning of a football season is always a curious period. Our much-cherished teams turn up at 3pm on opening day looking ever so slightly different from the last time we saw them. New kits, new colours if you live in Cardiff, new players and sometimes even new managers. Whatever misty remnant...

Monday, 20 August 2012

A new football season always throws up some unusual stories on day one but there can have been few beginnings to a campaign quite like Portsmouths. Amazingly Pompey came away with a point from their first League One encounter despite sending out a whole team of debutants.
Before he joined the sou...

Saturday, 18 August 2012

The new football season in England kicks off on Saturday and everyone will be going into the first game full of optimism and hope for a successful season. Unfortunately, some fans may be left crying in their beer come Saturday night.
You see, football can be a cruel, cruel game. It can take that op...

Tuesday, 14 August 2012

It’s been a gruelling few weeks for fans of sport hasn’t it? Ever since Spain cemented their place as football’s frontrunners at Euro 2012, there has been a disorientating vacuum of sport on television and no amount of frantic bashing of the Sky remote has been able to render any nourishment for s...

Tuesday, 24 July 2012

I don’t know about you, but even though the Olympics are yet to actually begin, I’m pretty sick of them already. I’m fed up of seeing clowns from the Government on Sky News demanding that the underclass should stop complaining that they can’t afford a pint of milk and just swoon in admiration at t...

Monday, 23 July 2012

Players and fans are supposed to wear their shirts with pride, but sometimes the tops are so hideous they make you utterly ashamed.
Arsenal fans have complained about their Dennis the Menace away kit, Manchester United supporters have hit out over their new tartan home kit and some Liverpool fans a...

Sunday, 22 July 2012

Do you think you can do a better job than the professor Arsene Wenger? Could you out-muscle Mancini at defending title winners Manchester City? Then this is your chance to prove it!
Squarefootballs Fantasy Football is back for another season and we want as many participants as possible. Last season...

Wednesday, 18 July 2012

Can you feel it? We’re in that disorientating period in the football calendar when everything’s not quite right. There’s no football on the TV; other sports like cricket and bloody cycling are beginning to barge their way onto the back pages, and most distressing of all your squads on Fifa are all...

Friday, 13 July 2012

Scottish football is in a sorry state right now as the Rangers debacle rumbles on, but today (Friday the 13th) Charles Greens newco Rangers are due to find out whether they will be gracing the first or third division of the Scottish Football League.
Its been a crazy few months for the men from Ibro...

Thursday, 28 June 2012

On August18, 2012, Charlton Athletic visit St Andrews in the Championship. Personally speaking the fixture is a trip down memory lane.
You see Birmingham City v Charlton Athletic was the first game I saw in the flesh. The date was September 15 1979 and the Blues won 1-0. Immediately I was hooke...

Monday, 11 June 2012

England take on France this afternoon in their first game of Euro2012 but expectations of Roy Hodgson guiding the country to glory are as low as those racist yobs in Poland and Ukraine who are grabbing all the headlines.
Music could hold the key. England have had some notable tournament songs i...

Wednesday, 06 June 2012

Calling all fantasy football fans. Have we got a treat for you.
If you think you are a better manager than Englands Roy Hodgson or that you could leave Germanys Joachim Low feeling really down in the dumps then why dont you prove it?
Weve set up our own Euro 2012 mini-league with the Sun and youve...

Tuesday, 22 May 2012

There are some days that it simply doesn’t pay to be a non-football fan. We have a tendency in this country to lurch en masse into things and render them inescapable to the more indifferent among us. We latch on to an event, a past time, even a television talent show and let it consume us until we...

Heart of Midlothian clinched their eighth Scottish Cup on Saturday with an emphatic 5-1 win over their Edinburgh rivals Hibernian. It was a terrible afternoon for the boys from Leith, but Pat Fenlons men are not alone in being humiliated on their big day.
Here are the 10 of the biggest cup final de...

Tuesday, 15 May 2012

It all came down to this then. It’s been a gruelling journey, epic in its fluctuating fortunes as the favourites for the crown jostled back and forth. Each weekend millions looked on, eagerly cheering their chosen heroes, willing them to put in the performance that would clinch the prize they so ...

Friday, 11 May 2012

There have been a number of top class displays from players in the Championship this season, some will even be polying their trade in the Premier League next season. But who has made it into Hugh Larkins Team of the Season?
Squarefootballs Hugh Larkin has kept his eye on the ball in the world outsi...

Tuesday, 08 May 2012

The 2011-12 football season will probably be looked back upon with a real intrigue in future decades. It has been a long, incident-strewn expedition encompassing an abundance of controversy, drama and despair. It is hard to remember another campaign with more extraordinary talking points. The Luis S...

Tuesday, 01 May 2012

It ended with Liam Gallagher bopping along to his own record at the Etihad last night in the her-uge title showdown between the Manchester giants on Live Ford Monday Night Football. Basking in his own genius is probably a nightly ritual for Gallagher junior but what certainly hasn’t been a regular o...

Thursday, 26 April 2012

We have just witnessed two of the greatest Champions League semi-final clashes of all time. Chelsea were heroic against the Spanish giants Barcelona while Bayern Munich kept their nerve to beat Real Madrid on penalties at the Bernabeu to set up a mouth-watering final in May.
However, the Premier...

Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Manchester United’s Ashley Young and Chelsea’s Didier Drogba have caused controversy over the past fortnight by diving to win penalties and going down quicker than your average High Street hooker.
Ashley Young started it all off by winning a cheap penalty against QPR’s Shaun Derry, when the tough m...

Back in the hazy midsummer days of August 2011, while hoards of frenzied teenagers were marauding their way through the streets of London setting fire to police cars, looting Poundland and generally ruining Boris Johnson’s holiday; I was indulging in a regular pre-season pursuit. Like every footba...

Monday, 23 April 2012

More and more of the big issues were decided this weekend and Charlton Atheltic finally achieved what they have been destined for ever since the season kicked off. Chris Powells squad have been front-running since September and no-one has ever looked like catching them.
With the Addicks confirmed a...

Tuesday, 17 April 2012

Well, it was a helluva’ few days in the Premier League title race last week wasn’t it? The fortunes of the twin Manchester clubs are weaving increasingly erratic patterns as the burden of the top trophy begins to heap its weight on their slumping shoulders. The last seven days or so have seen a numb...

Tuesday, 10 April 2012

There are many boulevards open to footballers when the time finally comes for them to hang up their boots, delete Sir Alex’s number from their Blackberry and say goodbye to the pantomime-drudgery of the Premier League. Obviously, the twin favourites for many pros are either a cushy job coaching the ...

Monday, 09 April 2012

As football fans, in our lives rarely is there a greater spectacle than a mouth-watering Champions League semi-final between two expensively assembled sides. Rarely is there a more exciting prospect than the thought of Arsenal and Manchester City at loggerheads, with both teams in need of three ...